Teachers Get Pink Slips, but School District Is Still Hiring. The San Diego Unified School District recently sent 900 "pink slips" to teachers, notifying them of the potential for lay-offs due to budget problems. But San Diego Union-Tribune blogger Chris Reed notes: "If administrators at San Diego Unified anticipate a fiscal bloodbath, it's not apparent on their jobs available page. It lists 67 openings for teaching, management and non-teaching jobs, with 49 having no closing date for applying, suggesting continuous recruitment efforts." He adds that some of the listings "are for the sort of support jobs – 'instructional assistant' – that hardly seem like priorities in a district in the middle of a huge, huge, huge budget crisis."
Mr. Reed compared the district to a North Carolina district with a similar number of students, and noted that in North Carolina, where the state is expecting to run a small surplus this year, the comparable district had 66 job openings – one less than the San Diego district.
The blogger's conclusion: "There is a big gap between the rhetoric of San Diego Unified's leaders and what the district is actually doing on the job front. But then that's what Operation Hysteria is all about. The education establishment sees a chance to win public support for big tax hikes – which under Proposition 98 automatically means much more $$ for schools – and it's going all out."
The Union-Tribune's research tracks with a Cal-Tax report that found San Francisco Bay Area school districts posting ads for new hires after generating headlines by handing out pink slips (see Cal-Taxletter of April 4, 2008). (Source: San Diego Union-Tribune blog, April 30.)
Cal-Taxletter May 2, 2008
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